CSEC roundup 18 May 2014

Recent news and commentary items related to CSEC (mostly concerning Bill C-13, Bill S-4, and/or Canadian government access to data from telecom companies):

- Jonathan Kay, "Jonathan Kay on Glenn Greenwald: There’s ‘no place to hide’ from Big Brother. But few seem to care," National Post, 17 May 2014
- Stephen Maher, "Maher: Government making it easier to spy on Canadians without warrants or oversight," Postmedia News, 16 May 2014
- Justin Ling, "Opposition Is Mounting Against the Conservatives’ Surveillance-Friendly Cyberbullying Bill," Vice, 16 May 2014
- Justin Ling, "For Canada's Spies, Your Data Is Just a Phone Call Away," Motherboard, 15 May 2014
- Daniel Tencer, "12 Things Harper Doesn't Want You To Know About Spying On Canadians," Huffington Post Canada, 15 May 2014
- Editorial, "Your cellphone is not your castle. But it should be," Globe and Mail, 15 May 2014
- Thomas Walkom, "Supreme Court ruling on Mohamed Harkat boosts the surveillance state: Walkom," Toronto Star, 14 May 2014
- Craig Forcese, "Parliamentary Review of Intelligence Service Activity: Assessing the Different Models," National Security Law blog, 13 May 2014
- Criag Forcese, "Security Surveillance, Lawful Access and Boiling Frogs," National Security Law blog, 9 May 2014
- Alex Boutilier, "Privacy watchdog calls for reforms but ministers stay silent," Toronto Star, 8 May 2014
- Alex Boutilier, "Federal government is ‘creeping’ your Facebook page," Toronto Star, 8 May 2014
- Josn Wingrove, "Ottawa launches data collection review," Globe and Mail, 8 May 2014
- Michael Geist, "Why Public Safety Minister Blaney Gets It Wrong on Privacy and Warrantless Disclosures," michaelgeist.ca, 7 May 2014
- Michael Geist, "Five Measures to Help Counter the Tidal Wave of Secret Telecom Disclosures," michaelgeist.ca, 6 May 2014
- Ben Makuch, "Is Canada Stalking Me? A New Software Platform Aims To Find Out," Motherboard, 5 May 2014
- Lisa Austin & Andrea Slane, "We can’t let phone companies determine our privacy rights," Globe and Mail, 5 May 2014
- Paul McLeod, "Data issue took 3 years to surface," Chronicle Herald, 2 May 2014
- Gerald Caplan, "Fighting for your right to privacy is a lot older than computers," Globe and Mail, 2 May 2014

Those looking for more information about government access to telecom data should listen to the excellent Canadaland podcast on the topic, which featured Citizen Lab's Christopher Parsons: "Your Telecom Provider is Selling your Information to the Government," Canadaland podcast, 6 May 2014.

Recent interviews with Citizen Lab's director, Ron Deibert, are also well worth a listen:
- "Privacy Concerns" (TV interview), Lang & O'Leary Exchange, 30 April 2014.
- "VICE Canada Conversations: Ronald Deibert," Vice, 7 May 2014

New web forum about surveillance in Canada: Transparent Lives: Surveillance in Canada. The web forum and a book with the same name are the work of a collaborative research project involving several Canadian researchers (more information here). The book is available as a free download. The issues addressed in the book were discussed at a conference at the University of Ottawa from the 8th to the 10th of May. The conference produced an "Ottawa Statement on Mass Surveillance in Canada" for which the organizers have been collecting signatories. News coverage of the book/conference: Jim Bronskill, "Public-private blurring risks privacy: book," Canadian Press, 6 May 2014

For an NSA-focused (but certainly CSEC-relevant) discussion of SIGINT and public surveillance, the debate that took place in Toronto on May 2nd can be watched here. Journalist Glenn Greenwald and Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian argued against the proposition that "state surveillance is a legitimate defence of our freedoms," while former NSA director Michael Hayden and Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz argued in favour of it. Related news coverage:
- "Edward Snowden appears via video at Toronto debate," Associated Press, 2 May 2014
- "State surveillance under microscope," CBC News, 2 May 2014